


The Beauty of the Fereldan Countryside

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Loneliness, M/M, Older Characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 20:37:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7376533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twenty years after the Kirkwall Incident, Fenris is still wandering the lands by himself, unwilling to return there or settle down anywhere else. In the middle of Nowhere, Ferelden, he comes across a man he had known to be dead and discovers that time changes many things.</p><p>NB i'm taking the premise of Anders Alive and Well to the shamelessly fluffy extreme here, so no more possession, no more taint, cats, vegetable patches, apple trees, old and mellow Fenris, no events after inquisition, just... ALL WAS WELL. just let me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Beauty of the Fereldan Countryside

**Author's Note:**

  * For [reverokameorih](https://archiveofourown.org/users/reverokameorih/gifts).



> Because I'm still failing to deliver truth spell smut... I know this is not at all what you had in mind when you said old cranky dudes, but hey, first kiss?

Fenris grimaces and pulls his cloak tightly around himself to ward off the cold drizzle that is steadily turning into a downpour. Somewhere in the very back of his mind, he can hear a vague echo of Hawke’s voice, droning on about the beauty of the Fereldan countryside, and with a wry smile he watches his toes sink into the slick mud with every step.

The weather has been abysmal since he left Gwaren three days ago, and by now the neverending rain has seeped through to his bones. He should have just waited for another ship, one that was going somewhere he is not yet tired of.

With a sigh he trudges on, casting a glance at the slowly darkening sky. He will have to find a spot to sleep soon. The night before, he was adequately sheltered under dense foliage, but the woods are sparse now, and there is no sign of civilisation either.

He puts the decision off for a while longer and keeps walking until night has fallen. Up a hill, he can make out a line of trees and quickens his steps. His eyes widen when he reaches the top and clearly sees the orange glow of fire to the right. An illuminated window?

Hesitantly, he takes a step towards the light, and one back, towards the dark forest ahead.

Would it hurt to take a closer look? It might be a farm, with a barn for him to sleep in. And it’s not too far; he will not lose much ground if he is not welcome and has to turn back.

Not a farm, he realises as he gets closer, just a small cottage; but like a moth he is irresistibly drawn to the warm light shining from the window. A black cat on the windowsill perks up and watches with wide eyes as he approaches past an apple tree and some vegetable patches.

As unobtrusively as possible with the cat now standing there staring at him with an accusatory expression, he peers into the room. It is sparsely furnished with a rickety bed, table, and chair; and an armchair facing the fireplace where the inhabitant is evidently seated, though all Fenris can see is a hand stroking another cat sitting on the armrest, this one a grey tabby.

He draws back hastily when the tabby hops off the chair and runs towards the window, no doubt to see what has the black cat so excited. Unsure what to do, he steps backwards until he stands in the shadow behind the apple tree. Should he knock and ask if there is a place to sleep? Or should he leave?

He freezes when the door opens and a tall silhouette appears in the frame.

“Hello?”

Fenris frowns. The voice is soft and hoarse, an older man’s voice, but it stirs a faint memory.

“Hello? Do you need help?” The man steps forward, the light from the window catching his profile, and Fenris’ heart plummets.

The formerly reddish blond hair is streaked with silver, and the lines on his forehead are deeper now, but he is still unmistakably Anders. Anders, who lay dead in the rubble of Kirkwall’s Chantry, Hawke’s dagger buried in his back.

“I can see your eyes glowing behind the tree. If you need help, please don’t be afraid.” Anders’ voice turns sharp. “If your intentions are not friendly, please come out just the same; I don’t intend to stand here all night.”

How often had he been on the receiving end of this harsh tone? Part of him wants to run now, to avoid… everything about this; but another part is pulled in by the sudden feeling of familiarity.

Without making a conscious decision, he finds himself stepping forward. He can see the exact moment the mage sees his face beneath the hood of his cloak, when wariness turns to shock within a split second.

“Fenris?” he whispers after a long moment of silence.

“Anders,” Fenris replies quietly, more evenly than he feels.

A short bark of laughter with a touch of hysterics is the answer before Anders claps a hand to his mouth and continues to stare silently.

Fenris shifts uncomfortably, mud squelching between his toes.

The mage looks down slowly with a lost expression on his face as he stares at Fenris’ bare feet.

“Do you want to come in?” he asks finally and looks up again, expression unchanged.

Fenris nods. Anders nods as well, then turns and disappears into the house.

Before Fenris has reached the door, he is back with a bucket of water and a washcloth.

“If you want to… I mean. You’re not wearing shoes.”

“Thank you.”

“It’s not warm! The water. I’m sorry,” Anders blurts out anxiously.

Fenris pauses in his movements and looks up.

“You are greatly overestimating how much feeling I still have in my toes,” he feels himself compelled to say.

“Oh. Of course. Just… come in when… yes.”

As soon as Fenris has entered the room, he has Anders bustling around him; and within minutes he is kitted out with too large but dry clothes and sat in the armchair by the fire with a warm blanket wrapped around him and a steaming mug of tea in his hands.

He can’t quite suppress a smirk when the mage pulls up the chair beside him and sits down stiffly. Almost twenty years have passed, and the man’s emotions are still written just as clearly on his face as they always had been. Fenris can empathise with the anxious trepidation radiating off Anders, perhaps only too well as he is the one sitting here with a mage who is supposed to be dead, but he refuses to show it.

The black cat slinks into the room from the kitchen and takes back the spot on the windowsill, regarding him warily.

“Serrah Sunshine,” Anders says with a gesture at the cat. “Her other half, Milady Moon, is shy, but she’ll show up eventually.”

Leave it to the mage to deflect with talk of cats when things get uncomfortable. But then again, Fenris is the one who cannot bring himself to ask the question, so perhaps he is in no position to judge.

“What brings you here?” Anders asks after several minutes of silence. His tone is so deliberately casual that Fenris raises an incredulous eyebrow.

“I was in the neighbourhood, so I thought I’d stop by.”

The mage's startled laugh changes the frown lines on his face, Fenris notices. He has a lot more frown lines than laugh lines. Again, not that Fenris is one to talk.

“You know what I mean,” Anders mutters. “It’s not like I have any idea what you’ve been up to since-” He breaks off, biting his lip.

“Since you died?”

Anders flinches. “Yes,” he whispers without meeting Fenris’ gaze.

“I’ve been travelling,” Fenris says with a shrug. “But the work has not been much different from… before. Killing slavers, killing blood mages, killing demons.”

He sips his tea and watches Anders with sharp eyes, still waiting for him to talk.

When there’s nothing, he prompts, “What about you then? You are looking a lot better than when I last saw you.”

To be quite honest, the mage looks a lot better than long before his death, the pained look aside that he gives Fenris before turning his gaze back to the floorboards.

“I didn’t die,” he says quietly. “Justice died in my stead.”

He falls silent again, and Fenris catches himself looking even harder, as if he could see the demon or lack thereof that way.

“You are yourself, then?”

“Yes, not an abomination anymore,” Anders confirms with a tired smile before sobering and continuing. “When I woke up, everything was quiet and I… was all alone, inside and out. I couldn’t… didn’t want to be killed again, so… I ran. Put on my Grey Warden armour to get easy passage, and ended up here eventually. I thought... if I stayed away from everyone, far from where I could do harm, it would be… it would be just as if I had died.”

His voice and eyes are pleading, as though he fears Fenris has just been waiting for the end of his story to execute him.

Fenris says nothing and takes another sip of tea.

“What are you going to do?” Anders presses, fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

“Most likely nothing.”

“But-”

“Punishment or retribution had nothing to do with why I said you should die back then. I saw a man who had lost control as well as the strength and will to regain it. But now? Now you appear to be only as dangerous as the next mage. Perhaps even less so because you will hopefully think twice before meddling with demons again.”

“He was-” Anders catches himself at the sight of Fenris’ raised eyebrow and blushes, clearing his throat. “Sorry. You’ve mellowed over the years.”

Fenris hums. “Barely.”

The mage smiles slightly and looks down again, tracing a groove in the wooden seat of the chair with a finger. “How are the others?”

“I have not really kept in touch,” Fenris replies with a shrug. “Some months ago, I met Isabela and by extension Merrill in Llomerynn, and they told me they had been back to Kirkwall to see Varric before and that he was well, but… I do not want to go there. And even if I were better at writing, I would not know what to put in a letter. I am no good at chit-chat.”

“You’re doing remarkably well right now. Especially considering how bizarre the situation is.” When Fenris snorts, he looks curiously at him. “Have you been on your own the entire time then? Does it not get lonely?”

“I had acquaintances when I stayed in a place for longer; but I never really settled anywhere for several years again, and I do not make friends easily. I could ask you the same thing, though,” he adds defensively, already half expecting a barb from Anders about his personality, but the mage only gives him a wry smile in return.

“Even if you had been a bandit come to kill me and burn my house to the ground, I probably would have insisted on having a chat over a cup of tea first. Well… in truth, it isn’t too bad. I have the cats, and there is a village an hour’s walk to the west. I sometimes go there for the market, and some of the people will come here for healing.”

“You still run a clinic then?”

“They only come to me when the local healer cannot help, when their illness cannot be cured without… magic.” He shoots an apologetic glance at Fenris, presumably for just mentioning the word. “It’s not like in Darktown, though; I wouldn’t be able to cope with that anymore. I barely slept then.”

“You do look more well rested than you used to.” He finds himself captivated again by how some lines on Anders’ face deepen and others smooth out when he laughs.

“Thanks a lot, just say that I look old enough to take naps during the day. You’ve barely aged two days, damned elf.”

Fenris chuckles and shakes his head. “Don’t flatter me, mage.”

“Speaking of naps, though, it feels like it may be time to take one lasting until morning now. I have a cot in the kitchen, but you can sleep in my bed.” Anders pauses and blushes. “I would sleep on the cot then, I mean.”

“Keep your bed, old man. I had been planning on sleeping in the mud outside, so a cot sounds just fine.”

“Maker, I wouldn’t be able to get up anymore.”

“It is a lot harder than it used to be,” Fenris admits and follows Anders to the kitchen.

The cot is in the far corner of the room, another chair holding several potion bottles and jars beside it. A pair of luminous green eyes is staring at him from underneath.

“Don’t mind Milady Moon. Her curiosity will probably get the better of her when you’re asleep; she might start pawing at you then. Well, you know where I sleep. Wake me if you need anything.”

“Thank you, Anders,” Fenris says earnestly and gets a shy smile in return.

“You’re welcome. It’s… I’m glad that you’re here.”

Fenris lies awake once everything has gone dark and quiet. For obvious reasons, he had never envisioned seeing Anders again; and while a small, bitter part of him wants to bring up the War, wants to lay the blame for everything that’s happened on the mage’s shoulders, the larger part is shying away. He does not want to see his face crumpled with guilt he already knows Anders has been feeling for so long, does not want to destroy this peace when the few friends he has ever had are dead or scattered all over Thedas. He smiles when he remembers seeing Merrill again for the first time since Kirkwall. When she had wrapped her arms around him and told him excitedly how good it was to see him, he had been unable to stop himself from returning the hug.

Perhaps this is what the mage means by ‘mellow’.

His smile falls when he remembers the ache in his chest when Isabela and Merrill had set sail again, and he thinks of the following morning, when he will say goodbye to Anders and move on.

With a quiet thump, Milady Moon lands on the cot by his side and stares at him. He holds out his hand, and she sniffs it cautiously before bumping it with her head just slightly and running off to Anders’ room. With a sigh, he closes his eyes and tries to banish all thoughts from his mind.

He wakes early in the morning when Anders creeps through the kitchen to the privy with a whispered apology upon seeing him open his eyes. Fenris is quiet during breakfast, does not know what to say.

“Your clothes and pack have dried,” Anders finally breaks the silence. “Not that it will last long.” He casts a mournful glance at the rain pattering against the window.

Fenris nods and swallows the last bite of bread before getting ready. He is dragging his feet and tells himself that it’s just the weather holding him back as he slowly pulls on his cloak.

“I’m glad to see you’ve upgraded your armour, by the way. This one actually covers most of your vital organs,” the mage says lightly with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“There is not always a competent healer around these days. I had to take precautions.” Fenris’ heart clenches when Anders laughs and opens the door.

“Well then…” He looks outside and back to Fenris. “Take care of yourself, Fenris.”

“And you, mage.” He pulls up the hood of his cloak and steps outside. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Anytime. Maybe I’ll see you again.”

“Perhaps one day.”

He will never see Anders again, he thinks as he walks away, but this is not a thing to say out loud. He would not be able to.

Hasty footsteps splashing in the mud make him turn to see Anders hurry after him.

“This is ridiculous,” he pants when he arrives. “You should… if you’re not in a rush, you are welcome to stay until the rain lets up. I can’t let you go like this, you’ll catch your death.”

Fenris can feel his eyes take on the puppy quality their friends used to make fun of, but he can’t help it. “That would be… thank you,” he rumbles, and the mage beams at him, all laughter lines and sparkling eyes.

A week later, Fenris looks anxiously at the first golden rays creeping over the hilltop, but Anders shakes his head. “You should wait until the ground is dry, or you’ll get mud between your toes again. It’s a health hazard.” He grins, but his eyes are cautiously attempting to hide a plea, and Fenris nods.

“I should listen to the healer.”

When the ground is dry, Anders thinks the clouds look like there might be a storm coming.

When the clouds have disappeared, Fenris thinks he saw the paw prints of at least seven bears when he went hunting in the woods the day before.

When the bears have moved on, Anders' leg hurts and he needs help with the firewood.

When they have chopped and stacked the wood, the first raindrops begin to fall.

“That’s sure to keep going on for another fortnight. I think we’ve missed the chance to send you on your way this time,” Anders says with an apologetic expression that does not match the mischievous glint in his eyes.

“It’s a shame,” Fenris replies, and his body seems to move on its own when he pulls Anders down into a kiss.

After a moment’s hesitation, Anders wraps strong arms around him and pulls him close. He touches his lips when they part. “Well, that’s a thing that hasn’t happened in… almost three decades. Maker.”

“Does it bother you?” Fenris asks.

“What? That I’m very old and you are gorgeous? Probably not as much as it should.”

Fenris cocks his head. “You are barely older than me, if at all. But regardless, I meant, we obviously do not have to…  if you have no interest in... this.”

“Well, I’m very much out of practice, but I would enjoy… being close to you. If you are sure.”

Fenris does not know how or why it happened, but he knows he is sure. If he left this place and Anders now, he would be even more lost than before; so he will follow his instincts and stay. With the mage.

He notices that Anders is watching him with bated breath and realises he has not answered, so he kisses him again and feels Anders smile against his lips before he begins to walk backwards without breaking the kiss, back inside, out of the rain.


End file.
